JUDGMENT OF 7.7.1964 — CASE 70/63 COLLOTTI v COURT

In Case 70/63,

THE COURT (First Chamber) composed of: A. Trabucchi, President, L. Delvaux (Rapporteur) and W. Strauß, Judges, Advocate-General: M. Lagrange Registrar: H.J. Eversen, Assistant Registrar

gives the following

JUDGMENT

Issues of fact and of law

I — Conclusions of the parties

A. The applicant claims:

(a) In his application that the Court should: ‘Declare that it has jurisdiction to entertain the present dispute; Rule that this application is admissible and well-founded and therefore annul the decision of 14 March 1963 in so far as it classified the applicant in Grade L/A3, Step 5, with seniority from 1 July 1960; In so reversing the decision, classify the applicant in Grade L/A 3, Step 7, with effect from 1 January 1962, with the appropriate pecuniary adjustments and the payment of salary back-dated to 1 January 1962; Alternatively: rule that the objection of illegality raised against Article 2 (b) of the General Staff Regulations of the ECSC is well-founded and that the applicant's career bracket should consequently be restructured ab initio, and rule that on 31 December 1961 he was placed in Grade A 3, Step 6, with 15 months' seniority, in the Language Service under the ECSC scale, and that from that position he should be reclassified with effect from 1 January 1962 in Grade L/A 3, Step 7; in the scale of the revised Staff Regulations, with 15 months' seniority in the step, with all the appropriate pecuniary consequences, including the payment of salary back-dated to 1 January 1962; Order the production by the defendant of all documents indicating the percentage salaries of all officials in Category A and L/A at 30 June 1956 together with their classification at the entry into force of the Staff Regulations of the ECSC; and in any case order the defendant to bear the costs and expenses of the action.’ (b) In his reply: ‘The applicant maintains his principal conclusions in their entirety and puts forward the following alternative conclusions: that the Court should: annul the individual decision of the Court of 17 July 1956 in so far as it based on Article 2 (b) of the General Staff Regulations of the ECSC, adopted by the Committee of Presidents, which should be declared inapplicable from the outset on the ground of infringement of Article 24 of the Staff Regulations of the ECSC; consequently, rule that the applicant's career bracket should be restructured ab initio, and that on 31 December 1961 he was placed in Grade A 3, Step 6, with 15 months’ seniority in the Language Service under the ECSC scale, and that from that position he should be reclassified with effect from 1 January 1962 in Grade L/A 3, Step 7, in the scale of the revised Staff Regulations, with 15 months' seniority in the step, with all the appropriate pecuniary adjustments including the payment of salary back-dated to 1 January 1962.

B. The defendant contends that the Court should:

‘dismiss the application made by Umberto Collotti as being without legal foundation, with regard to both the principal and alternative claims; dismiss the request for the production of documents relating to the salary of officials in Category A and L/A on 30 June 1956, as being irrelevant to the present action; order the applicant to bear his own costs.’

II — Statement of facts

The facts may be summarized as follows:

The applicant entered the service of the Court of Justice on 7 September 1954 as a linguistic expert. He was nominated Head of the Language Department with effect from 1 January 1956 by decision of the Court of 17 November 1955. By decision of the Court of 17 July 1956 he became subject to the Staff Regulations and was classified in Grade L/A, Step 5. In the alternative conclusions of his application, the applicant contests this decision of 17 July 1956, claiming that it is based on Article 2 (b) of the General Staff Regulations of the ECSC, enacted by the Committee of Presidents on 5 and 29 March 1956; Article 2 (b) of the General Staff Regulations contains the salary scale of the officials in the Language Department and the applicant alleges that this scale infringes the provisions of Article 24 of the Staff Regulations of the ECSC, adopted by the Committee of Presidents on 28 January 1956, in that Article 24 provides only 13 grades, divided into 3 categories, for the officials of the ECSC and that, although it gives the institutions the power to group a certain number of grades of one or more categories into special services, it does not allow them to create new grades within those services, such as the four grades in the Language Department (L/A, L/B, L/C and L/D), which, taken in conjunction with the 13 grades of the ordinary scale, result in a total of 17 grades: according to the applicant, since Article 24 of the said Staff Regulations limits the number of grades to 13, the creation of these four additional grades is illegal.

On 1 January 1960, the applicant reached the last step (L/A, second additional step) of his grade.

The decision of the Court of 14 March 1963 classifies the applicant in Grade L/A 3, Step 5, with 18 months' Seniority in the step, with effect from 1 January 1962, within the new salary scale of the revised Staff Regulations of the ECSC. In the conclusions relating to the principal claim of his application, the applicant contests the said decision of 14 March 1963, claiming that, if the calculations on the basis of which he was reclassified in the new scale had been correctly effected, he would have been classified at 1 January 1962 in Grade L/A 3, Step 7, with a right to the next step on 1 January 1964: in other words, the applicant claims that he is entitled to a step higher by two years and six months than that recognized by the said decision.

Under the terms of the alternative conclusions of his application, requesting the annulment of the Court's decision of 17 July 1956, the applicant claims that the ensuing restructuring of his career bracket should result in his classification at 1 January 1962 in Grade L/A 3, Step 7, with 15 months' seniority in that step: in other words, the applicant claims to be entitled, after the restructuring of his career bracket, to a step higher by three years and nine months than that which had been recognized by the decision of the Court of 14 March 1963.

III — Submissions and arguments of the parties

The submissions and arguments of the parties may be summarized as follows:

A — On admissibility

1. With regard to the principal claim

The defendant does not dispute the admissibility of the principal claim.

2. With regard to the alternative claim

The defendant does not contend expressly that the alternative claim is inadmissible. Nevertheless, it emphasizes various arguments which in fact constitute objections of inadmissibility.

(a) Late filing and formal acceptance

The defendant asserts that the claim based on the request for annulment under Article 2 (b) of the General Staff Regulations of the ECSC, ‘is in any event out of time and consequently inadmissible’.

It claims that the applicant cannot possibly be allowed to call in question in 1963 Regulations introduced in 1956, the consequences of which he has moreover formally accepted at the time (see the declaration by the applicant of 28 June 1956, Schedule 6 to the statement of defence), and which have moreover been replaced since 1 January 1962 by other Regulations under which the applicant obtains the benefit of a higher grade than that which he had under the former Staff Regulations.

With regard to the argument that the application is out of time, the applicant replies that the case-law of the Court with regard to ‘the objection of illegality’ seems solidly founded especially following the reiteration in the Treaties of Rome (Articles 184 of the EEC Treaty and 156 of the EAEC Treaty) of the principles set forth in the judgments in Cases 9/56 and 10/56. It is true that previously these principles have only been applied with regard to general decisions (regulations) of the High Authority on the application of undertakings, but there are all the more grounds for applying these principles when the objection is raised by a servant of the Community against an individual decision of his institution based on a regulation of the Committee of Presidents vitiated by illegality. From the point of view of law and of equity, it seems in fact inconceivable to refuse to servants of the Communities a means of legal protection conferred not only on undertakings, but, according to the EEC and EAEC Treaties, on ‘any party’.

The applicant replies with regard to the argument of formal acceptance that, while it is incontestable that the document of 28 June 1956materially constitutes an acceptance, it was however only expressed subject to the reservations contained in a letter collectively addressed on the same day by the members of the Language Department to the Court to protest against their classification in the grades of a special service.

According to the applicant, the acceptance recognized by the document of 28 June 1956 was made subject to serious reservations and consent was vitiated because of the improper procedure followed by, the administration.

The defendant replies that the agreement reached, the only one which binds the parties, was the condition ‘sine qua nòn’ of the appointment under the Staff Regulations requested by the applicant (Article 60 (2) and (3) of the former Staff Regulations of the ECSC).

(b) Deficiency of particulars in the alternative conclusions and lack of legal interest to act

The defendant alleges that in his application the applicant uses the expression ‘objection’ without defining what he means by this. Is he proposing that an objection should be upheld in his particular case outside any rule of the Staff Regulations, without thereby implying an amendment to the Staff Regulations applicable to all servants of all the Language Departments of the four institutions of the ECSC since 1956? Or does he want annulment ‘erga omnes’ with retroactive effect? If an annulment of this nature were pronounced, the sole consequence of abolishing the Language Department would be — since, at its meeting on 5 March 1956 the Committee of Presidents conferred on the Language Department the Grades A 4, 5, 6 and 7, abolishing Step 1 of those grades and adding an additional step to the last step — a reduction by one step of the maximum salary for all the servants of the Language Department, limiting them to the maximum of the normal scale of Grades A 4, A 5, A 6 and A 7, which the applicant clearly cannot wish.

The applicant replies that he used the words ‘objection of illegality’ in order to refer to the judgment in Case 9/56 (Meroni, 18 June 1956, Rec. 1958, p. 11) and in particular to paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 of the Summary and that this makes his claim sufficiently clear to relieve the administration of the necessity of constructing hypotheses and above all of claiming that the alternative claim is time-barred and inadmissible.

He nevertheless clarifies his alternative conclusions by replacing the words ‘objection of illegality’ with the words ‘annul the individual decision of the Court of 17 July 1956 in that it is based on Article 2 (b) of the General Staff Regulations of the ECSC, which must from the outset be declared inapplicable on the ground of infringement of Article 24 of the Staff Regulations of the ECSC’.

B — On the merits

1. With regard to the principal claim

The applicant claims that the decision taken by the Court on 14 March 1963, to the extent that it is contested, infringes the revised Staff Regulations of the ECSC, and in particular Annex I thereto, by its disregard of the principle of the autonomy of the institutions of the Community and the rules of good administration. In fact, in order to resolve the problem of the proper step for the applicant, the administration of the Court, instead of following an independent and autonomous interpretation and application of the appropriate provisions, appears merely to have followed what was done in a similar case by another institution (the High Authority in respect of the Head of its Language Department).

In order to apply the revised Staff Regulations, the decision taken classified the applicant in Grade L/A 3, Step 5, with 18 months' seniority in that step, with effect from 1 January 1962. This classification was wrong with regard to the step. On 31 December 1961 the applicant had been classified, under the ECSC system, in Grade L/A, second additional step (7), and had attained two years' seniority at that step. His reclassification according to the scale of the revised Staff Regulations was governed by Annex X to the revised Staff Regulations; paragraph (1) of the said Annex states that ‘the servant … may be confirmed in the grade and at the step of the scale of remuneration laid down by these Staff Regulations corresponding to the grade and step expressly or by implication accorded him before these Regulations were applied to him’.

Since the new Staff Regulations do not provide special grades for the Language Department, it is impossible to reclassify directly from the former special scale of the Language Department to the new ordinary scale and the grade and step which the applicant had by implication under the ECSC system must of necessity be established from the former ordinary scale. In this connexion, it must be noted above all that it is established that the grades of the Language Department of the ECSC do not correspond directly to the grades and steps of the ECSC ordinary scale; there are intermediate grades and in particular for former Grade L/A covered both the former Grades 4 and 3. At the meeting of the Committee of Presidents on 5 March 1956, the then President of the High Authority, Mr Mayer, persuaded the three other Presidents to accept the Language Department, stating that the highest step provided for the head of the Language Department corresponded to the second step of Grade 2. It may however be wondered which steps in the former Grade L/A correspond to Grade 4 and which to Grade 3. A fairly clear answer to this is afforded by the initial classification of the applicant in 1956; having received during the period before the entry into force of the Staff Regulations a salary rated at 62.5 % of the salary of a Member of the Court, which already placed him in Grade 3, he was classified at Step 5; and further by the decision of the Committee of Presidents of 5 February 1959, which extended the career bracket of the Assistant Head of the Language Department, to Step 4 of the same Grade L/A: it is easy to deduce from this that Step 5 and the two additional steps of the former Grade L/A correspond to Grade 3 of the ordinary scale. In any case one thing is certain: the second additional step (that is Step 7) of the former Grade L/A corresponds without any doubt to Grade 3 of the ECSC ordinary scale. Having thus established the grade which the applicant held by implication in the ECSC system, it remains to establish the step. The second additional step L/A at which the applicant was placed on 31 December 1961 carries a basic salary of 8220 units of account; this amount is within a few units of Grade 3 of the ECSC scale (see Schedule 3 to the application) and it must therefore be deduced that, under the terms of the ECSC system, the applicant had by implication Grade 3, Step 5, with two years' seniority.

To effect the reclassification in the scale of the revised Staff Regulations, it is thus necessary to start from Grade 3, Step 5, of the ECSC scale and to classify the applicant, with effect from 1 January 1962, in Grade L/A 3, Step 5, then, in accordance with paragraph (4) (b) of Annex X to place him at the step immediately above, that is, Step 6, and finally, applying Article 94 of the new Staff Regulations, to place him at Step 7 by virtue of two years' seniority acquired at his last step under the ECSC system; thus, at 1 January 1962, the applicant should be classified at L/A 3, Step 7, with entitlement to the next step on 1 January 1964.

The applicant states that the decision taken does not contain a statement of reasons, whilst admitting at the same time that, given its nature, it could not have a statement of reasons.

The applicant states that the foregoing constitutes sufficient proof that at 31 December 1961 he was placed in a career bracket corresponding to Grade 3 of the ECSC ordinary scale.

With the aim of supporting his claim that the point of departure for the calculations to effect the reclassification in the scale of the new Staff Regulations is Grade A 3, the applicant claims in his conclusions that the Court should:

‘order the production by the defendant of all documents indicating the percentage salaries of all officials in Category A and L/A at 30 June 1956 together with their classification at the entry into force of the Staff Regulations of the ECSC’.

The defendant replies by stating in detail the reasons why the reclassification in Grade L/A, second additional step resulted, in the scale of the new Staff Regulations, in Grade L/A 3, Step 5, with eighteen months' seniority at the step.

1) Grade L/A 4 of the new Staff Regulations corresponds to Grade L/A of the former Regulations and Step 7 of Grade L/A (41250 francs per month) corresponds to the second additional step of Grade L/A (8220 units of account). This is in application of paragraph (1) of the sole Article of Annex X to the new Staff Regulations.

2) The value of a step in the former grade (1650 francs per month) was granted through the application of paragraph (4) (b) of the sole Article of Annex X to the new Staff Regulations.

3) The value of a step in the former grade (1650 francs per month) was granted because, under the former Staff Regulations of the ECSC, the applicant had acquired two years' seniority at the last step in his grade.

4) A compensatory allowance of 635 francs, representing the difference between the salary in Grade L/A, second additional step, and the salary of Grade L/A 4, Step 8, would have been granted to the applicant if he had not claimed Grade L/A 3. This is in application of Article 95 of the new Staff Regulations. Account has been taken of this amount of 635 francs in ascertaining the step in Grade L/A 3.

5) In order to pass from Grade L/A 4 to Grade L/A 3, the applicant has been granted the value of a new step of 1650 francs per month, in application of Article 46 of the new Staff Regulations.

6) The applicant has benefited from seniority arising from the notional step dealt with in Article 46. The calculation of the notional step results in the sum of 1585 francs, the difference between the sum which is given by the addition of items 1 to 5 below and the amount of the step in Grade 3 immediately below the gross figure obtained.

This calculation has been effected on the basis of the value of the step in the new grade, that is, 2150 francs per month, and the calculation of

24 2.150× 1.585 = 17,7, giving 18 months' seniority.

The classification of the applicant, on the basis of the foregoing, may be summarized as follows:

This amount corresponds to Grade L/A 3, Step 5, leaving a balance of 1585 francs, which constitutes the basis for calculating the seniority at the step (18 months), as a result of which at 1 July 1962 the applicant was entitled to Step 6 of Grade L/A 3.

The defendant observes that the rules described above were also employed by the High Authority, the Council and the European Parliamentary Assembly to ascertain the position of Heads of the Language Departments.

A note of 5 December 1962 from the Secretariat of the Councils brought the question before the Committee of the Heads of Administration (Schedule 8 to the statement of defence). That Committee adopted a common attitude at its meeting on 21 February 1963 (Schedule 9 to the statement of defence) and decided:

1) To carry out integration in the grade corresponding to that attributed to the official under the former provisions (linear transposition);

2) To ascertain the step in that grade by applying paragraph (4) (b) of the sole Article of Annex X to the new Staff Regulations of the ECSC (Article 102 (4) (b) of the new Staff Regulations of the EEC and EAEC);

3) To assimilate transfer to a higher grade to promotion, thus affording the person concerned the benefit of the provisions of Article 46 in order to ascertain his step in the new grade.

The applicant contests the legality of using Article 46 of the revised Staff Regulations. He states that this Article forms part of Chapter 3, entitled ‘Reports, Advancement to a higher step and Promotion’ and that it can only relate to promotion as such, that is to say, obtained by a servant on merit or by his seniority. If, under one system of Staff Regulations, a servant was placed in Grade 4 by reason of his duties, and if a new system ranks these duties in Grade 3, the servant must naturally be classified in Grade 3; this does not constitute promotion which always involves a personal factor with regard to the servant, but is simply an alteration of grade by the authority under the new system and, if necessary, as a consequence of a reorganization of departments. The fact that other administrations have also adopted the solution of applying Article 46 and that it has been recognized or approved by the Audit Board in Brussels does not alter its illegality. The seniority at a step acquired by servants under the ECSC system is in any event perfectly protected by Article 94 (Transitional and Final Provisions) of the new Staff Regulations, the only one applicable. There can therefore be no question here of reasoning by analogy.

The defendant replies that the applicant's finding is astonishing, given that the application of Article 46 to his case, was the most favourable interpretation that could be given to the relevant provisions, thereby affording the person concerned the opportunity of benefiting by a further step. In accordance, moreover, with the terms of Article 46, the administration was obliged to grant this step to the applicant, classifying him in Grade 3. In fact Article 46 commences with these words: ‘An official appointed to a higher grade shall … have etc’. The applicant has been appointed to a higher grade, that is, he is transferring from Grade L/A to Grade 3 and consequently, according to the administration's argument, he was entitled to this step. The defendant then undertakes an examination, point by point, of the arguments put forward by the applicant in his application.

(a) The principle of the autonomy of the institutions

In alleging that the defendant has ignored the principle of the autonomy of the institutions, the applicant forgets that, except on two precise points, the Staff Regulations of all three Communities are identical and that it is therefore essential that they be applied in an identical manner in all the institutions of the Communities.

The three sets of Staff Regulations do not merely relate to the institutions, but indeed to the Community to which they belong. In addition, the problems posed by the existence of common institutions which must apply the three sets of Staff Regulations at the same time, the possibility of transferring servants from one institution to another and the supervision exercised by the Auditor of the ECSC and the Audit Board of the EEC and EAEC require a uniform application of the provisions of the Staff Regulations.

This requirement, arising in addition from the elementary rules of good administration, had already been fulfilled under the Staff Regulations of the ECSC by which the Committee of Presidents had created the Joint Interests Committee to assist in a uniform application of the Staff Regulations while reserving to itself the right to settle the points of divergence.

This requirement again made itself felt when the two new Communities were established. A Committee of the Heads of Administration of the institutions of the three Communities now fulfils the role which had developed upon the Joint Interests Committee. The rules governing the classification of the applicant are thus not only those which the High Authority applied to the Head of its Language Department, but also those applied by the Assembly, the Council of Ministers and the Court of Tustice.

Preliminary consultation between the institutions in no way prevents any of them taking their own decisions and bearing the entire responsibility for them.

The applicant replies that, as is stated in Schedule 9 to the statement of defence (p. 5), the meetings of the Committee of the Heads of Administration ‘are merely meetings for practical purposes without any institutional character and consequently carry no legal weight’. The Joint Interests Committee is merely a consultative body of the Committee of Presidents. In order to establish the classification of the Head of the Language Department, the administration of the Court had thus referred to bodies without legal existence or without competence. In so doing, it has certainly ignored, inter alia, the principle of the autonomy of the institutions, which the Court defined in general terms in its judgment of 12 July 1957 (Joined Cases 7/56 and 3 to 7/57, Rec. 1957, pp. 86 and 87, Summary, paragraphs 6 and 7) and applied to the administration of the Court in its judgment of 1 June 1961 (Case 15/60, Rec. 1961, Summary, paragraph 7). It should be stressed that in the latter judgment the Court ruled with understandable moderation but nonetheless firmly that the independence and autonomy of the institutions imply that they and their administrations have themselves the right and the duty to seek the correct solutions without paying too much heed to whether another institution has adopted a different solution.

(b) Calculation by the applicant of the grade and step

The defendant states that the applicant's claim that Grade 3 must be the point of departure for the reclassification according to the scale of the revised Staff Regulations is at odds with both paragraph (1) of the sole Article of Annex X to the revised Staff Regulations and the work of the Committee of Presidents in 1956.

(aa) The terms of paragraph (1) of the sole Article of Annex X

According to the defendant's interpretation, the reference to ‘the grade and step expressly attained’ related to servants who, being already officials established under the Staff Regulations of the ECSC, are by that fact already classified in a grade and at a step.

The reference to ‘the grade and step attained’ refers to contractual servants, that is to say, those whose salaries have been established in the contract, by analogy with the grades and steps of the former Staff Regulations of the ECSC, without these being stated. This was the case for all staff of the two new Communities and the common institutions employed on the basis of a contract. The expression ‘by implication’ also covers the position of officials under the Staff Regulations of the ECSC who have a post ‘ad interim’.

The applicant replies that the interpretation of the defendant with regard to staff employed on the basis of a contract is entirely wrong. It is sufficient, in order to show this, to note that under Article 246 (3) of the EEC Treaty and Article 214 (3) of the EAEC Treaty before the entry into force of the Staff Regulationsall servants of those Communities and those of the common institutions who had not been established under the ECSC system were contractual servants. With regard to servants holding a position ‘ad interim’ under the ECSC system, it is not clear what relationship can exist between their position and the ‘implied’ grades and steps as, according to Article 26 of the former Staff Regulations of the ECSC, it is just an interim period when a servant holding a certain grade has conferred upon him the duties of a higher grade; in order to establish whether the duties temporarily performed are of a higher level, it is clearly necessary to know the express grade to which the servant belongs and the express grade to which the duties carried out ad interim correspond.

However, the defendant indirectly gives a definition of the ‘implied’ grade and step which would be acceptable to the applicant because it confirms his argument in another way. It is admitted by both parties that, in order to classify servants under the ECSC system in the scale of the new Staff Regulations, it is necessary to take the ECSC ordinary scale as the basis and notionally bring in the servants previously outside that scale. The definition of the ‘implied’ grade which can be deduced from the administration's arguments is the following: when the grade and step of a servant do not appear expressly in the ECSC ordinary scale, they are to be established by implication by means of the salary which the servant receives. It is true that this definition might be insufficient to settle certain cases, since the same step may be found in various grades of the ECSC scale. In such cases reference would have to be made to other criteria but with regard to the applicant's case no doubt is possible: in fact, at 31 December 1961 (and for 24 months before that date) he received a basic salary of 8220 units of account (L/A, maximum step). In the table of scales appended as Schedule 3 to the application this amount is not even approximately found within the steps of Grade A 4; but it is found on the contrary, to within 60 units, in Grade 3, Step 5; and again in Grade A 2 between Steps 2 and 3. There can be no question of Grade 2 because of the limitation imposed on the Language Department and thus account can and should be taken only of Step 5 of Grade 3. It is therefore necessary to take this step as the basis and to add two steps to it, as agreed by the administration, to arrive thus, at 1 January 1962, at Grade 3, Step 7, of the new scale. This solution is arrived at even if it is desired to qualify Grade L/A of the ECSC system strictly as ‘Grade 4 augmented by one step’, as the administration does at page 11, last line, of its statement of defence, as it is precisely this extra step which does not appear in the former Grade 4 and can only be found elsewhere, that is to say, in Grade 3.

The defendant replies that the applicant was classified at 31 December 1961 expressly in Grade L/A, second additional step, as an established official, and that only the servants whose salary was not fixed by express reference to a grade and step of a scale under a set of Staff Regulations could fall within the concept of an implied grade. In fact, it must be remarked that Annex X, with its ‘sole Article’, contains differing provisions referring first to established officials and secondly to contractual servants.

Thus for example,

it is stated in the first subparagraph of paragraph (1) that ‘a servant… may … be established’,

at (b) mention is made of the Establishment Board,

at (2) mention is made of ‘the contract of any such servant’.

Yet more examples may be derived from this sole Article of Annex X which, it must in addition be stressed, is completely identical with Article 102 of the Staff Regulations of the EEC and the EAEC.

The tact that the sole Article of Annex X is identical with Article 102 shows that, in order to make the three sets of Staff Regulations identical, provisions which are applicable only to a very small number of servants in the ECSC have been repeated in the Staff Regulations of the ECSC, as is detailed in the statement of defence. On the other hand, in the case of the EEC and EAEC, Article 102, which deals with transitional provisions, forms an integral part of the Staff Regulations properly so called and applies to all the staff of those Communities.

In any case it is evident that the terms referred to above are not applicable in the case of the applicant who was an established official in a grade and step expressly defined in the Staff Regulations of the ECSC.

On the other hand, progressing from Article 93 to which Annex X refers and combining the provisions of paragraph (1) of its sole Article (particularly with regard to the description of the express grade and step) with paragraph (4) (b) one finds in the new scale the grade and step corresponding to the position of Head of the Language Department.

(bb) The work of the Committee of Presidents in 1956 on the Staff Regulations of the ECSC

The defendant produces the minutes of the meeting of the Committee of Presidents on 5 March 1956 (Schedule 12 to the statement of defence) and the draft of the General Staff Regulations (Schedule 13). It deduces from these documents that the former Staff Regulations of the ECSC conferred upon the Head of the Language Department the equivalent of Grade A 4 increased by one step.

It quotes from the minutes the conclusion of the Committee of Presidents:

‘The Committee … decided simply to grant an increase of an additional step for the Language Departments while continuing to exclude transfer from this department without a competition. 'The Committee has consequently decided to adjust the Language Department a step higher than is provided for in the draft General Staff Regulations, the point of departure of the career bracket being 3816 units of account E.P.U., and the maximum being 8200 units of account.’

Tne abovementioned arait of the General Staff Regulations indisputably shows that the grades of the Language Department (T/A, T/B, T/C and T/D) correspond to Grades 4, 5, 6 and 7. It should be noted that letter T (which indicates translator) has subsequently been replaced by L (indicating linguist).

It should. also De noted that the arait of the General Staff Regulations was drawn up by the Staff Regulations Committee, composed in equal proportions of representatives of the institutions and of representatives of the staff of the Community and that ‘the representatives of the staff regretted the use of the “concept of a unit” to isolate a certain group of officials’.

It was that remark, moreover, which caused the President of the High Authority, Rene Mayer, ‘to propose to increase the general advantages given to this unit but to refuse transfer to its officials without a competition’ (See Schedule 12 to the statement of defence, p. 12, penultimate paragraph). The meaning which he intended this proposition to have emerges very clearly from the declaration which appears at page 13, last paragraph, of Schedule 12 which states:

‘He declares finally that he will not insist on the maintenance of this special unit, but, if it is not adopted, much greater severity will be necessary in the field of harmonizing the Language Departments the salaries of which will therefore be lower.’

The work of the Committee of Presidents thus shows decisively that the grade expressly occupied by the Head of the Language Department is Grade L/A and that, if a comparison must be made with the grades of the ordinary scale, it is certainly Grade 4 increased by one step.

All grades, in proportion they progress through the steps, overlap the salaries of one or two higher grades. Thus it was that President Mayer was rightly able to show that the maximum of L/A corresponded to Grade 2, Step 2.

In conclusion, the difference between the classification as applied by the Court on the one hand, and that considered just by the applicant on the other, arises principally from the fact that the applicant wrongly takes Grade A 3 instead of Grade A 4 as the basis for his calculations.

The defendant then examines the applicant's conclusions requesting the Court to order the production of a document relating to the Court's classification of Officials in Category A and L/A in 1956. It considers that a document stating the position of other servants of the Court, occupying different posts from that of the applicant, is irrelevant to the present dispute.

The applicant replies first that it is doubtful whether the defendant can after seven years produce in evidence against him two documents (Schedules 12 and 13 to the statement of defence) about which he could not have known.

On analysing the first document (Schedule 12), he finds that it in no way proves anything beyond the fact that for the Committee of Presidents Grade L/A was equivalent to Grade A 4.

With regard to the second document (Schedule 13), it seems that the European Parliamentary Assembly had envisaged introducing a grade numbered 4 at the same time as T/A. But, on comparing Schedule 13 with Schedule 12, it is found that Grade T/A, which was completely identical with Grade 4, was not accepted by the Committee of Presidents and, consequently, in order to reach an agreement, Grade A 4 was substantially reviewed, the initial step was abolished, over and above the maximum step of 7620 units of account there was added a step with 8220 units of account named ‘Grade L/A’ finally abolishing all equivalence with other grades in the ordinary scale. It follows from this that Grade L/A is not and never has been identical with Grade 4. The applicant then examines what constituted Grade L/A under the former Staff Regulations of the ECSC: it was an intermediate grade between Grade A 3 and Grade A 4, the lower steps of which came within Grade A 4, while the higher steps, at least the highest of all, the additional second step which the applicant had, could come within Grade A 3.

The applicant then goes on to establish that, given the refusal of the defendant to produce the table relating to the classification of officials in 1956, he is obliged to reconstruct the essential part of it: he occupies the third place with a salary prior to the Staff Regulations of 62.5 % of the salary of a Member of the Court.

The applicant then alleges that the former Members of the Court and the Registrar, the defendant's agent in the present case, proffered the opinion that the applicant's grade under the former Staff Regulations of the ECSC corresponded to Grade A 3, and even to Grade A 2. He adds that, if the Court deemed it useful to order measures of inquiry, he would not oppose this, but he requests that the Court should in any event also order the examination of the applicant and the agent of the defendant.

He also adduces an argument from Annex I to the new Staff Regulations of the ECSC, where it is stated that ‘the Head of the Translation Division’ must be classified exclusively in Grade L/A 3, whilst Annex I to the Staff Regulations of the EEC and the EAEC allows the ‘Head of the Translation Division’ to be classified in Grades L/A 3 and L/A 4, and in fact the Heads of the Translation Division in the Commission of the EEC and EAEC are effectively classified in Grade L/A 4. Why were they treated differently? The applicant states that the reason for this is that of the four Heads of the Language Departments in the former institutions of the ECSC three (at the Council, the Court and the High Authority), were already in a position in their career brackets corresponding to Grade A 3 and it was legally impossible to demote them.

The applicant concludes that, once it has been established that the point of departure for his classification is Grade 3, further progress can only take place by the method indicated in the application, which is, moreover, on more than one point in agreement with that which the administration has followed. The parties are in fact agreed that it is necessary to start from the special scale of the Language Department of the ECSC, to move first to the ECSC ordinary scale and thence to the scale of the new Staff Regulations; they also agree that the applicant is entitled to be granted a further step for the two years' seniority acquired at the last step of Grade L/A at 31 December 1961 when the ECSC system was terminated.

The defendant replies that it is not true that the applicant was unaware of Schedules 12 and 13 to the statement of defence. It is proved that he was aware of the minutes of the meeting of the Committee of Presidents on 5 March 1956 (Schedule 12), first by the background of the application and, secondly by a letter addressed to the Court by the applicant on 3 March 1961 (Schedule 1 to the rejoinder).

With regard to the draft of the General Staff Regulations (Schedule 13 to the statement of defence) it is not, as the applicant states, a document presented by the European Parliamentary Assembly, but a document prepared by the General Staff Regulations Committee for the Committee of Presidents. The confusions may have arisen because the document was typed at the Assembly on its headed notepaper. But the staff knew of this document since it was prepared by the General Staff Regulations Committee composed of the assembled representatives of the institutions and of the staff.

With regard to the nature of Grade L/A under the system of the former Staff Regulations of the ECSC, the defendant observes that, although it is true that, following the decision of the Committee of Presidents, ‘a new grade’ was introduced (the first grade of the Language Department), it is also true, as the applicant himself has said, that this grade is effectively the same as Grade A 4. Moreover, the applicant did not establish this recently. He expressed it even more clearly in the above-mentioned letter of 3 March 1961, stating: ‘At the time when the Staff Regulations were applied, I was classified in Grade L/A, a grade which was arbitrarily created, and which is only Grade 4 disguised by a false description’ (Schedule 1 to the rejoinder p. 2, second paragraph).

It is impossible to recognize more clearly that the administration of the Court was justified in taking Grade 4 as the basis for classifying the applicant in Grade 3 under the new Staff Regulations.

If an additional argument is required that the course of action of the administration of the Court was justified it may be found in the observation which the applicant himself makes that the career bracket of the Head of the Language Department extends over Grades A 3 and A 4 in the Staff Regulations of the EEC and EAEC (p. 12, in fine of the reply). Indeed, the Staff Regulations of the ECSC provide only for Grade A 3. But can a common institution ignore two of the three sets of Staff Regulations which it must apply simultaneously?

The defendant adds that the classifica tion of the Head of the Language Department was determined in an identical fashion by all the institutions, which clearly indicates that there was no discrimination against the applicant.

The defendant does not dispute the fact that it wished the Head of the Language Department to be classified in Grade 3 when the former Staff Regulations of the ECSC entered into force. The interventions of Mr Pilotti, the Chairman of the Committee of Presidents, the documents of the Court relating to the classification of its staff, the interventions of the Registrar at the administrative meetings, in accordance with the instructions received by him, are clear in this matter.

But all this is concerned with preparatory work. The fact is that the decision taken did not conform to the views of the Court and that, consequently, it was necessary to classify the staff in accordance with the decision which the Court in the end approved. Therefore, when the Staff Regulations entered into force, it was necessary to modify certain provisional classifications or equations of positions existing prior to that date, and certain officials found that they had lost ground to others whose positions were in higher grades. This emerges from the data put forward by the applicant in his reply (p. 8, first paragraph), while he calls ‘the essential part of the celebrated table’ which he had requested the administration to produce.

The applicant did not, however, suffer any pecuniary loss by being integrated under the former Staff Regulations of the ECSC since he immediately obtained an increase of 500 francs per month (see statement of defence, p. 3).

The applicant recognizes, moreover, that the relationship between employer and employee in the public sector is different from that in the private sector (p. 12, third paragraph of the reply). Staff Regulations are ‘enacted’ not ‘negotiated’.

(c) Paragraph (4) (b) of Annex X to the new Staff Regulations of the ECSC

The defendant states that the applicant rightly considers that he is entitled to the step accorded to the Language Department by paragraph (4) (b) of the sole Article of Annex X. It is necessary, however, to explain why this step was accorded to the officials of the Language Department to the exclusion of any other service.

This extra step must re -establish exact equality with the servants classified in the corresponding grades of the normal scale.

In fact paragraph (1) of the sole Article of Annex X states that the official ‘may be established in the grade and at the step in the scale of remuneration’.

Consequently the important factor is to establish in particular the correspondence between the steps without comparing the level of salaries.

The fact is that, according to the former Staff Regulations of the ECSC, officials of the Language Department benefited from a scale comparatively extended by a step to Grades 4, 5, 6 and 7, as has been explained at length above.

pot example, in order to find in the former Staff Regulations the salary of step 5 of Grade L/B in the salary scale of Grade 5, it is necessary to look for it at Step 6.

Consequently, it was not intended, in applying paragraph (4) of the sole Article, to give an additional advantage to the officials of the Language Department, but simply to place them in the same step in the normal scale of all the servants in Category A, since the special scale which covered them under the former Staff Regulations has been abolished.

The applicant disputes the defendant s interpretation that paragraph (4) (b) was not intended to give an additional advantage to the officials of the Language Department, but was merely to put them on an equal footing with the servants classified in the corresponding grades of the normal scale. The applicant observes that this interpretation is drawn from the note of 5 December 1962 from the Secretariat of the Councils of Ministers (Schedule 8 to the statement of defence), but that this note also put forward the following solution: in the case of example 2 (p. 3) the servant would pass from the Step 4 of the former Grade L/B to Step 5 of the New Grade L/A 4. At its meeting on 21 February 1963 (Schedule 9 to the statement of defence) the Committee of the Heads of Administration rejected the latter solution, probably for the reason set out in the note from the Secretariat of the Councils of Ministers, that is to say, because ‘the above-mentioned interpretation would result in conferring on the servants concerned a classification which is not justified in relation to that of comparable servants in Category A or of the servants of the Language Department who attain the grades in question by means of promotion’. The applicant notes that the rejected solution produces exactly what he advocates, but by a different method. He denies that such ‘classification is unjustified in relation to that of comparable servants in Category A’, pointing to the skills required of servants in the Language Department, the difficult and thankless work which was entrusted to them, and finally the fact that in practice their career bracket is limited to Grade 4, since Grade 3 is the exclusive preserve of the Head of the Department. In his opinion all these disadvantages are quite sufficient to justify modest compensation.

The defendant replies that for the new Staff Regulations to confer an additional step on the linguistic experts of necessity requires an objective reason which is, as indicated, of a purely technical nature.

On the other hand the applicant only invokes subjective, even sentimental reasons to accord to this group of officials an advantage which the other servants, equally deserving, do not enjoy. In principle, it appears that such an interpretation must be rejected in public law.

In conclusion, by considering himself to be already classified at the outset in Grade 3, he attains his integration without applying the provisions of Annex X and consequently is not entitled to the step provided for in paragraph (4) (b) which is provided expressly for comparing and equalizing the general scale of salaries with the special scale of the Language Department.

(d) The material damage alleged by the applicant

According to the defendant there has been no damage, since there was no error in classifying the applicant.

In Schedule 2 to the statement of defence it states the monthly amounts of the applicant's pension at 60 years of age: under the former Staff Regulations it was 13758 francs and under the revised Staff Regulations it is increased to 17459 francs.

The defendant again points out that the revision of the Staff Regulations makes it possible for the applicant to attain a further grade and allows him to retain the ten years' seniority provided for in the former Staff Regulations in calculating his pension.

The applicant replies that there is damage when a person is deprived of part of that which is due to him by law or by contract.

If the administration is of the opinion that there is no damage, why has it not invoked the plea of lack of interest and contended that the principal claim is inadmissible? The fact that the applicant has derived advantages from his new classification is quite irrelevant since it is clear that he was entitled to further advantages.

2. As to the alternative claim

The applicant states that in the unlikely event of the Court's finding that the existence of special grades for the Language Department under the ECSC system requires it to be considered that at 31 December 1961, the applicant was in a career bracket corresponding to Grade 4, then the applicant claims alternatively, and by way of exception, that Article 2 (b) of the General Staff Regulations of the ECSC adopted by the Committee of Presidents and applied by the Court of Justice in 1956, should be annulled on the ground of infringement of Article 24 of the former Staff Regulations of the ECSC.

In tact, Article 24 provides 13 grades in all, divided into three categories for the officials of the ECSC. The institutions were empowered to group a certain number of these grades of one or more categories into special units but they were not permitted to create new grades within those units, such as grades L/A, L/B, L/C and L/D which, together with the 13 grades of the ordinary scale, give a total of 17 grades. The creation of these four additional grades is on all the evidence illegal and arbitrary. The provision setting up these grades must therefore be annulled.

In the circumstances the career bracket of the applicant should be restructured from the beginning as if the special grades had never existed, always taking account of the Language Department. Moreover, this restructuring of his career bracket does not involve any difficulty. If reference is made to the period prior to the Staff Regulations it is found that the applicant entered the department in September 1954 with a salary of 55 %, that in 1 January 1956 he was appointed Head of the Department at a salary of 62.5 % with effect from 1 January 1956; the only other official of the Court with a salary of 62.5 % was classified at the time of the entry into force of the Staff Regulations of the ECSC in Grade 3, Step 3, and consequently the applicant should also be notionally classified in the same grade and step together with the seniority acquired in the step (1 October 1954 to 30 June 1956), that is to say, 21 months; on 1 October 1956 he must rise to Step 4, on 1 October 1958 to Step 5, on 1 October 1960 to Step 6, arriving on 31 December 1961 (the end of the ECSC system) at the same Step 6 with 15 months' seniority. In this notional career bracket he must be reclassified in Grade 3, Step 6, of the scale of the revised Staff Regulations under paragraph (1) of Annex X with 15 months' seniority in the step and then, under paragraph (4) (b) of the same Annex, in Step 5 of the scale of the revised Staff Regulations, still with 15 months' seniority in the step.

The defendant replies that the official with whom the applicant compares himself follows a different career at the Court from that of Head of the Language Department. The person in question is no doubt an attache who, under the former Staff Regulations of the ECSC of 1956, already enjoyed a career bracket one grade higher and was consequently classified in Grade 3 since 1956, whilst the career bracket of the Head of the Language Department attains the maximum grade of L/A, in which the applicant has also been classified since 1956.

The applicant adduces an argument based on the fact that, with regard to attaches, the Court recently decided to restructure their career bracket on the basis of the provisions stated in the table of grades and corresponding posts. He claims that the same rule should be applied to him, but entirely different situations are concerned.

When the former Staff Regulations of the ECSC entered into force, no rule allowing for seniority was laid down. The rule applied had in principle been to reclassify the current salary obtained in the scale of salaries and career brackets. The applicant had benefited from it at that time, as he was classified at Step 5 of L/A and had been since he was appointed to the post of Head of the Language Department.

Without the alteration in the extent of the career bracket introduced by the revised Staff Regulations he would have attained since 1 January 1960 the maximum in his career bracket.

On the other hand, the official with whom the applicant compares himself followed the same career bracket from the very beginning (1953). The applicant was appointed on 1 January 1956 to a new career bracket. Consequently, the conditions are not comparable. Furthermore, if on restructuring his career bracket, the applicant were classified at 1 October 1954 (the date of his entry into service, and after that date, as Head of the Department) in Grade 3, he would only attain Step 6 by 1 October 1964. He has been at Step 6 since 1 July 1962, following the decision of the Court of 14 March 1963.

Consequently, the documents relating to the classification of the officials in Category A or L/A in 1956, the production of which is requested by the applicant, cannot afford any new factor relevant to the present dispute. This request should consequently be dismissed.

The applicant replies that, if the Court finds in his favour and restructures his career bracket, his seniority at the step must date from the first of the month following his entry into the service (1 October 1954), that is to say, carrying over into the step of the new grade the seniority in the step attained in the former grade, as prescribed by Article 39 (3) of the former Staff Regulations of the ECSC.

Since no express transitional provision on this matter was inserted into the former Staff Regulations of the ECSC, the institutions did not adopt a uniform mode of procedure: the High Authority vaguely fixed the seniority of its servants in the relevant steps at 1 July 1956, whilst the Court and the Council of Ministers fixed different dates spread over the period from 1 January 1955 to 1 July 1956.

The administration will no doubt reply that it was not obliged to take into account the seniority attained in the period prior to the Staff Regulations and that the system for the staff during the period prior to the Staff Regulations did not provide for steps and still less for the right of servants to retain the seniority acquired at the step when promoted.

The applicant replies as follows to these objections:

a) In the period prior to the Man Regulations steps existed under the title of ‘two-yearly increments’;

b) The right of promoted servants to retain the seniority at the step acquired in the lower grade appears as a generally accepted principle which the former Staff Regulations of the ECSC only recognized by Article 39 (3) in fine, in the same way as the new Staff Regulations have sanctioned it, with very precise rules for its application in the first paragraph of Article 46.

c) Furthermore, independently of what has been stated above, it is impossible to ignore the fact that, in its judgment in Case 1/55 (Kergall v Common Assembly of the ECSC, 19 July 1955), which constitutes to some extent the Staff Regulations of officials of the Community ‘ante litteram’, the Court clearly laid down (Summary, paragraph 2, Rec. 1955-1956, p. 13) that, with regard to contracts of employment concluded during the period prior to the Staff Regulations, the institutions must take into consideration not only the wishes of the parties but also ‘the intentions of the Community with regard to its servants which are clearly shown in the final draft of the Staff Regulations’ (judgment quoted, paragraph 7, Rec. 1955-1956, p. 24). The dratt referred to was that distributed in September 1954, that is, almost one and a half years before the adoption of the final version. Article 39 of the former Staff Regulations of the ECSC was finally adopted before the promotion of the applicant to the post of Head of Department, and above all, several months before his new salary was fixed (April 1956); there is therefore all the more reason why the principle laid down by the Court must be applied to the case of the applicant.

IV — Procedure

The statements of the parties were presented in due form and within the prescribed time-limits and the procedure followed the normal course.

At the hearing on 22 January 1964, and after having heard the preliminary report of the Judge-Rapporteur and the opinion of the Advocate-General, the First Chamber of the Court required the defendant to produce the documents establishing the percentage salaries at 30 June 1956 which the officials of the Court of Justice in Categories A and L/A received, indicating their classification at the time of the entry into force of the former Staff Regulations of the ECSC, and required the Committee of Presidents to transmit the minutes of the meetings devoted to paragraphs (1) and (4) of the sole Article of Annex X to the new Staff Regulations of officials of the ECSC.

On 24 January 1964 the Committee of Presidents replied that the provisions in question had not been discussed by them.

On 28 January 1964 the defendant produced the documents required.

The parties presented oral arguments at the hearing on 19 February 1964.

The Advocate-General delivered his opinion at the hearing on 4 March 1964.

Grounds of judgment

A — Admissibility

The defendant has not disputed the admissibility of the principal claim and no grounds exist for the Court to raise the matter of its own motion.

The principal claim is admissible.

B — The substance of the case

1. Criticism of the method adopted by the defendant

In its statement of defence, the defendant set forth the method employed to ascertain the classification of the applicant, as reproduced in the contested decision.

The first operation in the reclassification consisted in the transfer from Grade L/A, second additional step, which the applicant held under the former Staff Regulations of the ECSC, to Grade L/A 4, Step 7, of the salary scale of the new Staff Regulations of the ECSC. In this first operation, the defendant correctly applied Annex X to the Staff Regulations.

Grades L/A, L/B, L/C, and L/D of the former Language Department correspond exactly to the former Grades 4, 5, 6 and 7 increased by one step.

It is to be noted that the second additional step of Grade L/A is equivalent to the highest step of the former Grade 4, increased by the value of a step of Grade 4, that is 300 units of account.

This interpretation is corroborated by paragraph (4) (b) of Annex X to the new Staff Regulations, which by conferring an ‘extra’ step on the officials of the Language Department, clearly tends to retain for these officials the advantage of the higher step provided for in the former Staff Regulations and mentioned above.

The second operation in the reclassification consisted in adding to the amount attained at the first operation (41250 francs) the value of one step of Grade L/A 4 (1650 francs) in order to satisfy the rule in paragraph (4) (b) of Annex X.

It follows from the provision applied, and in particular from the words ‘… shall be classified in the grade for his post and at the step within thatgrade directly above …’, that the step above must be conferred within the grade at the point arrived at by the reclassification, that is to say, in this case, in Grade L/A 3, in which the value of the step amounts to 2150 francs.

For this reason, the second operation in the reclassification has not been correctly carried out.

In the third place, the defendant added to the above figure the value of a step in Grade L/A 4 (1650 francs) in order to carry forward the two years' seniority acquired by the applicant in the second additional step of Grade L/A.

According to Article 94 of the new Staff Regulations ‘officials integrated through the application of Article 93 (which provision refers to Annex X) retain … the benefit of the seniority acquired within the last … step which they occupied at the entry into force of these Regulations …’.

That provision clearly indicates that the carrying forward of seniority applies to an integrated official, that is to say, in this case, already classified in Grade L/A 3, and that, consequently, it was necessary to employ the value of a step within this last grade (2150 francs).

For this reason the third operation in the reclassification can also not be approved.

The defendant in the fourth place added to the preceding figure the sum of 635 francs, representing the difference between the applicant's former salary and the salary of the new Grade L/A 4, Step 8, which would have been granted him if he had not been entitled to Grade L/A 3.

The compensatory allowance provided for by Article 95 of the Staff Regulations may only be granted if there is a difference between the former remuneration and that resulting from the application of the new Staff Regulations.

It is thus only after the last operation in the reclassification that it is possible to decide whether the official's remuneration has been reduced by reason of the application of the new Staff Regulations.

In the case in question, the salary corresponding to the applicant's grade and step recognized by the contested decision is higher than the remuneration received under the former Staff Regulations.

For this reason no compensatory allowance can be granted to the applicant or taken into account in an intermediate operation in the reclassification.

The defendant has finally added the value of a new step in Grade L/A 4 (1650 francs) pursuant to the first paragraph of Article 46 of the new Staff Regulations and has thus finally arrived at a figure of 46835 francs, corresponding to Grade L/A 3, Step 5, (45520 francs) with a balance of 1585 francs arising from the calculation of the notional step and producing a seniority at 1 January 1962 of 18 months in Step 5 of Grade L/A 3.

The applicant did not attain Grade L/A 3 through promotion.

This grade was automatically conferred on him in implementation of Annex I to the new Staff Regulations of the ECSC, following the revaluation under the Regulations of his post as ‘Head of the Translation Division’.

Apart from the considerations of principle set forth below at 3, it must at this point be observed that Article 46 applies the carrying forward of seniority by employing the value of the step of the former grade; on the other hand, as has been stated above, Article 94 of the Staff Regulations appearing among the provisions referring particularly to the ‘adjustment to the Staff Regulations’, provides that seniority shall be carried forward at the value of the step in the new grade.

On this ground, indeed, the final operation in the reclassification was invalidity carried out by the defendant.

On the above-mentioned grounds the contested decision has not correctly applied the provisions of the Staff Regulations and must be annulled in so far as it lays down the step to which the applicant is entitled.

2. Criticism of the method adopted by the applicant

The applicant alleges that he was placed by implication in Grade 3, Step 5, under the former Staff Regulations of the ECSC.

In fact the basic salary (8220 units of account) which goes with Grade L/A, second additional step, is higher than that of the highest step of the former Grade 4, but is equivalent approximately to Step 5 of the former Grade 3.

According to the applicant's argument, by carrying forward the seniority acquired in the former grade and by applying the ‘extra’ step recognized for officials of the Language Department, he must be classified on 1 January 1962 in Grade L/A 3, Step 7, with the right to the next step on 1 January 1964.

Under the former Staff Regulations the applicant had expressly attained Grade L/A, second additional step.

This grade must therefore serve as the point of departure for the reclassification in accordance with the scale of the new Staff Regulations, all the more so since it is impossible for the applicant to be appointed by implication to another grade.

Moreover, it emerges clearly from the minutes of the meeting of the Committee of Presidents on 5 March 1956 that Grade L/A was the former Grade 4, increased by one step.

Therefore, within the applicant's system, the provision of paragraph (4) (b) of Annex X providing for the addition of the value of one step becomes pointless since the reason for granting this step is to compensate those established in the former Grades ‘L’, by an increase of one step in relation to the former Grades 4, 5, 6 and 7.

The most favourable interpretation of the applicant's calculations could not therefore result in the granting of Step 6 of Grade L/A 3 at 1 January 1962.

Moreover, as the applicant employed an implied grade which he did not have as the point of departure, his calculation cannot constitute a valid basis for rectifying his classification.

3. Method arising from the spirit of the Staff Regulations

It is for the Court, in the exercise of its unlimited jurisdiction, to re-establish the classification of the applicant in accordance with the Staff Regulations.

As has been explained above, the first operation consists in reclassifying the applicant's former classification in accordance with the scales of the new Staff Regulations as Grade L/A 4, Step 7.

In accordance with Annex I to the new Staff Regulations, the applicant should transfer to Grade L/A 3 corresponding to the post of ‘Head of the Translation Division’. The transfer from Grade L/A 4 to Grade L/A 3 raises a difficulty caused by the silence of the new Staff Regulations when the reclassification must be effected to a higher grade than that corresponding to the grade which the person concerned held in the scales of the former Staff Regulations.

With regard to the determination of the step, it is therefore for the Court to arrive at the most reasonable solution which corresponds most with the ‘ratio legis’.

The Staff Regulations effect a revaluation of the post because of a more favourable evaluation of the duties.

In this case the post occupied by the applicant, which was an A 4 post under the former Staff Regulations, was transformed into an A 3 post.

Since the Staff Regulations are silent the revaluation of the post must logically be interpreted to mean that the former evaluation of the post was too low by a complete grade.

In fact, as Article 44 and the first paragraph of Article 32 of the Staff Regulations show, the essential role of the step is to take account of the seniority of the official and thus of a factor relating to his individual position.

The sole exception to this rule, established by the second paragraph of Article 32 of the Staff Regulations, is not such as to invalidate the reasoning set forth above, since it relates to ‘the special experience for the post of the person concerned’ and thus to a factor personal to the latter.

On the other hand, the revaluation of the post is based on a criterion independent of these factors, that is, by the value to be attributed in general and abstract terms to a given ‘basic post’.

Consequently, since the revaluation of the post and the determination of the step are guided by entirely different criteria, logic requires that the advantages arising from both for the person concerned should be accumulated separately, and certainly not set off against one another even partially.

Consequently, since the Staff Regulations are silent, it must be admitted that in cases of revaluation of a post, the person concerned must be classified in his new grade at the same step as that which he occupied in the former grade.

The argument that if the Staff Regulations are silent, the revaluation of the post should be governed by the rules laid down with regard to promotion must be dismissed.

In fact, and in the first place, as follows from Article 45 (1) of the Staff Regulations, promotion depends exclusively on the ‘merits of the officials eligible’ therefore and thus on a subjective criterion, which, as has just been said, is foreign to the reasons for a revaluation of the post.

In the second place, since the promotion classified the person concerned in his new grade at a step appreciably lower than the one which he had in his former grade, the application of the rules pertaining to promotion in cases of revaluation of posts establishes a discrimination between the official whose post has been revalued and all other officials newly recruited in a post of the same rank.

In'fact, this application of the rules pertaining to promotion would, for example, allow an official classified as A 4, Step 4, whose post was revalued as A 3, to pass to the first step of Grade A 3 thus placing him in the same position as a newly recruited A 3 official whose actual seniority would nevertheless be at least six years less than that of the first official.

As the relevant provisions are silent on this point, the Court cannot presume that the authors of the Staff Regulations wished to countenance so inequitable a solution.

It follows from the foregoing considerations that in this case the transfer from Grade L/A 4, Step 7, to Grade L/A 3, must lead to classification in this grade at the same step.

There are no grounds in this case for continuing the reclassification.

In fact, they have arrived at the stage corresponding exactly to that claimed by the applicant in his principal conclusons.

It follows from the reclassification operations set forth above that the applicant is entitled to be classified as at 1 January 1962 in Step 7 of Grade L/A 3, with seniority in the step from 1 January 1962.

C — On the alternative claim

As has been set forth above, the classification to which the applicant is entitled is that which he claimed in his principal conclusions.

Consequently, an examination of the alternative conclusions is rendered irrelevant.

D — Costs

The applicant has obtained the annulment of the disputed decision to the extent that it determined the step in Grade L/A 3 and the result of the present judgment accords him the position which he claimed.

The applicant must thereby be considered to be the successful party.

Under Article 69 (2) of the Rules of Procedure, the defendant must be ordered to bear all the costs of the action.

On those grounds, Upon reading the pleadings; Upon hearing the report of the Judge-Rapporteur; Upon hearing the parties; Upon hearing the opinion of the Advocate-General; Having regard to the Protocol on the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Coal and Steel Community; Having regard to Articles 32, 44, 45, 46, 66, 92, 93, 94, and 95 of the Staff Regulations of officials of the European Coal and Steel Community and Annexes I and X thereto; Having regard to the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice of the European Communities; THE COURT (First Chamber) hereby:

1 Annuls the decision taken by the defendant institution on 14 March 1963, to the extent that it lays down the step at which the applicant is to be classified as at 1 January 1962;

2 Classifies the applicant in Grade L/A 3, Step 7, with effect from 1 January 1962 with the pecuniary consequences arising therefrom and back payment of salary from 1 January 1962;

3 Orders the defendant to pay the costs of the action.